League of Legends LXV: What threads are mine to make, little Lamb? All, dear Wolf.

[Godskook]

Which other possibilities -are- there except 'top', 'mid', 'bot' or 'jungle'? Did you really want to play 'fountain' Alistar? Or 'ward' Teemo? I know this is a bit hyperbolic, but I can't honestly think of a less hyperbolic example to use.

Ok, thanks for the video, Farix, making this point moot.

With the way the video makes it look it'd be quite hard to deviate from running a 112J meta, but frankly, I don't think that's a big deal, for several reasons:

1.The 112J meta is already almost entirely solidified at the moment already, making this 'solidification' about as effective as putting duct tape on steel girders. Sure, buffs and nerfs might change this at some future date, but that's for a different point to discuss.

2.I've yet to see another meta that was more enjoyable to play or watch be played than the 112J meta. The most interesting pre-6 at the pro level always comes in matching lanes.

3.Not having the 112J meta would mean that it'd require more communication within a team to setup a working team-comp(Imagine having one guy who wanted to run a double-jungle comp while another wanted to run a single-jungle comp, how would they solve that impasse?).

4.The 112J meta does not prevent a -lot- of variations that could be done, such as solo-lane ADCs(even primary ADCs), double-mage bot, double-bruiser bot, roam-support, etc, etc. All the 112J says is mostly "these 3 guys take a lane's farm, that guy the jungle, and this guy doesn't farm", which...is mostly something that needs to be said, honestly. Oh, and it also says "the guy who isn't farm goes bot, more or less".

[Lethologica]

Quibble: Laneswaps and double jungle tend to create a lot of roaming and diving opportunities early as teams try to take advantage of asymmetries. I don't think pro play in matching lanes is uniformly more or less interesting than other configurations.

[Reinboom]

Where is it posted or public that it only affects self-healing? A lot of people I hear are unhappy about nerfs to healers such as soraka, but this would totally alleviate 'that' issue. Either needs to be more known I think, or if there is a link then I could give it to people.

Convenient timing, I mentioned it here again:
http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com...mment=000b0000

Could you give a quick explanation of what you mean by this?

The game to game variance of how often you crit? Of which champs are in the game? Of whether you get ahead and get your crit items earlier than usual?

In my mind, crit (or at least the current, RNG-based implementation of it) has been sort of 'on the chopping block' in a lot of people's minds for a while, and I'd love to hear a quick clarification of the "last significant thing keeping [Riot] from removing Crit".

Game to game variance is "my last games felt different".
There's a lot of factors that can contribute to this.
Productively learning things naturally keeps the game feeling different. Differing skill levels. Differing champions. Forced variance (RNG).

There are some things we'll be more liberal with and some things we'll be more conservative with depending on our understanding and those factors reaching bad values.
Game to game variance unfortunately qualifies on both. So we're intentionally being conservative with things that could damage variance until we work towards solving it.

I believe a lot of the changes here (choice contributes a LOT to it) as well a lot of the meta systemic changes (e.g. new match making) will help variance considerably, which will probably make hitting crit much easier.

[Epinephrine_Syn]

Convenient timing, I mentioned it here again:
http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com...mment=000b0000

Cool, with lots of dev info too. I know that the widespread use of grievous wounds might 'seem' like a nerf to characters with inbuilt sustain like Mundo, but I know that having this answer reliable and consistent allows for power to be put into those kits without breaking the enemy ability to respond to it (Mundo's needed help for a while anyway).

I know I've personally been looking forwards to something like Morgana's Passive being modified the way WoTA's has, and with grievous wounds in consistent play that might be a legitimate option without feeling oppressive.

Vlad… I don't know what to do with vlad. I don't know the champion enough to suggest things, or even how he'll function after this.

Honestly I think just Morgana and Akali (and Spell Vamp runes and Spell Vamp masteries) have Spell Vamp, and that's small enough that i think it's entirely possible you could change Spell Vamp as a "mechanic" outright to work on "Raw" damage dealt, and just have that "BE" what spell vamp does.

[Godskook]

Quibble: Laneswaps and double jungle tend to create a lot of roaming and diving opportunities early as teams try to take advantage of asymmetries. I don't think pro play in matching lanes is uniformly more or less interesting than other configurations.

Compared to what? The 112J creates roaming and ganking opportunities too, but they're more interesting inherently because they're less painfully lopsided. Nobody is surprised when 4 champions dive 1 guy and everyone gets out with a kill. Sure, when these tower-dives fail, its surprising, but its not as much of a "wow, that was fascinating" and more of a "that was formulaic, and here's how they messed up".

Spoiler

Show

Case-in-point, during the finals, SKT at one point while running standard lanes did a teamfight bottom solely based off a pink-ward drop that showed the other team didn't have any wards to call for teleports off of, at least according to the casters(I didn't catch that nuance during the actual play).

What was interesting about that play is that despite it starting symmetric, SKT found a way to -make- it asymmetric anyway.

[Lethologica]

Compared to what? The 112J creates roaming and ganking opportunities too, but they're more interesting inherently because they're less painfully lopsided. Nobody is surprised when 4 champions dive 1 guy and everyone gets out with a kill. Sure, when these tower-dives fail, its surprising, but its not as much of a "wow, that was fascinating" and more of a "that was formulaic, and here's how they messed up".

It's not inherent at all. I find the various tradeoffs made in asymmetric situations to be as interesting. You don't have to feel that way.

[Landis963]

Nobody is surprised when 4 champions dive 1 guy and everyone gets out with a kill.

I'd certainly be surprised. There's not enough champs to go around for everyone to get out with a kill.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Soooo someone just banned Teemo in my ranked game, I don't like where this is going

[Manticoran]

Convenient timing, I mentioned it here again:
Game to game variance is "my last games felt different".
There's a lot of factors that can contribute to this.
Productively learning things naturally keeps the game feeling different. Differing skill levels. Differing champions. Forced variance (RNG).

There are some things we'll be more liberal with and some things we'll be more conservative with depending on our understanding and those factors reaching bad values.
Game to game variance unfortunately qualifies on both. So we're intentionally being conservative with things that could damage variance until we work towards solving it.

I believe a lot of the changes here (choice contributes a LOT to it) as well a lot of the meta systemic changes (e.g. new match making) will help variance considerably, which will probably make hitting crit much easier.

This surprises me. Did you actually find that people find that games behave radically differently based on random crits? The only time when I've found that getting a bunch of crits in a row has been a thing that has impacted games has been mostly in the negative, where someone will get a random crit for a kill, and while it feels good to get the kill I don't think it feels as good as it feels bad to win a fight you likely could have/should have won.

The idea of crit chance on spells is ludicrous. No one wants a Veigar ult to crit for doubled damage. That's like, an URF-mode level hilarity if you added crit chance to most spells.

So auto attacks are defined as being regular and within certain bounds, set by the attack speed cap and the soft damage cap of "What you can actually build". The variance between different attacks is clearly a lot lower than the variance between different spells in the game. Which does give crit room to exist without being awful.

Er, so despite this fairly meandering post, I guess my question is: Does crit really create an amount of variance in the game that isn't more defined by player action? Crit clearly CAN turn a game in its randomness. Which ADC gets a crit first in a trade can determine who starts having lowered DPS due to needing to play safer, and thus who has a clear advantage for instance. But I'm not sure that feels good for anyone involved, other than "Hey I'm winning now" feelings which are balanced by the "**** I'm losing now" feelings, and additionally have the problem that it's no ones skill that causes this.

[Eldariel]

This surprises me. Did you actually find that people find that games behave radically differently based on random crits? The only time when I've found that getting a bunch of crits in a row has been a thing that has impacted games has been mostly in the negative, where someone will get a random crit for a kill, and while it feels good to get the kill I don't think it feels as good as it feels bad to win a fight you likely could have/should have won.

The idea of crit chance on spells is ludicrous. No one wants a Veigar ult to crit for doubled damage. That's like, an URF-mode level hilarity if you added crit chance to most spells.

So auto attacks are defined as being regular and within certain bounds, set by the attack speed cap and the soft damage cap of "What you can actually build". The variance between different attacks is clearly a lot lower than the variance between different spells in the game. Which does give crit room to exist without being awful.

Er, so despite this fairly meandering post, I guess my question is: Does crit really create an amount of variance in the game that isn't more defined by player action? Crit clearly CAN turn a game in its randomness. Which ADC gets a crit first in a trade can determine who starts having lowered DPS due to needing to play safer, and thus who has a clear advantage for instance. But I'm not sure that feels good for anyone involved, other than "Hey I'm winning now" feelings which are balanced by the "**** I'm losing now" feelings, and additionally have the problem that it's no ones skill that causes this.

I'd like to emphasize the role of agency here. Ultimately, the most rewarding aspect in League to me is seeing the hours I've put into the game and the skill I've accumulated pay off; eking out small edges in a laning phase, turning teamfights with good skillshots, positioning and calls or winning the game with a clutch object steal or backdoor. Those can involve luck too but it's luck that can easily be attributed to the human factor (even if that's not always the whole truth) rather than factors outside the player's control, and it can be played around. Things feel less good if it just randomly works out because RNG (e.g. minions a slight edge early on top with laners in the jungler - this creates an advantageous position for the one who gets a free freeze on lane) - and getting that 10% crit in a short trade is undeniably the latter and in all likelihood wins you the lane.

If I get it, I'll feel like I lucked out to win and whether or not I can outplay the opponent is something the game will not reveal. If I'm in the receiving end, I feel robbed if the lane was close; all the effort and jockeying cast aside by a single instance of RNG and I'll have to make big outplays to get back into it. Of course, the single random crit rune many people run in reds is the worst part: it's akin to the S1 crit mastery which meant everyone was randomly winning trades. That was removed because it wasn't rewarding and same applies to crit as a whole. Given only one archetype (and the few specifically designed champs, Trynd, Yi and Yasuo), marksman, really builds crit in any meaningful quantity, and they'll probably have enough to mitigate most of the RNG component in lategame, I don't think it's actually that big of a contributor to the game-to-game differences.

I'd say things like auto attack timings on lane, roam timings, ward placement, the skillshot minigames, etc. are all much more likely to contribute to a very different experience even between the exact same players and the same exact champs. Whether RNG crits happen is like to only influence botlane in the midgame and not that much in extended teamfights. And the superrandom Youmuu's or Triforce crits from some bot/midlane champs who build those items and sit at 10% crit for most of the game. The specifics are of course changing with the S6 itemization but I think there have been enough seasons for the trigger to be pulled especially since just about every other RNG mechanic in the game other than Shaco's Two-Shiv Poison vs. monsters has been removed.


I think there's room for crit to exist without it being an RNG mechanic: Sheen-type effects, Pantheon's HSS passive, Ashe's current passive, Cait's passive, Zeke's-style effects (just maybe 50% bonus to auto damage instead of 50% crit chance), etc. However, I feel the RNG crit effect is definitely a detriment to the game as a whole and it's not consistent with the rest of the game's design philosophy. It was a different game when dodge was around and some abilities had RNG components to them but those times are long gone - the current crit system is a relic from a bygone era. I'd even prefer the quick'n'dirty "convert %crit chance to %damage bonus on auto attacks".

[Anarion]

I'd like to emphasize the role of agency here. Ultimately, the most rewarding aspect in League to me is seeing the hours I've put into the game and the skill I've accumulated pay off; eking out small edges in a laning phase, turning teamfights with good skillshots, positioning and calls or winning the game with a clutch object steal or backdoor. Those can involve luck too but it's luck that can easily be attributed to the human factor (even if that's not always the whole truth) rather than factors outside the player's control, and it can be played around. Things feel less good if it just randomly works out because RNG (e.g. minions a slight edge early on top with laners in the jungler - this creates an advantageous position for the one who gets a free freeze on lane) - and getting that 10% crit in a short trade is undeniably the latter and in all likelihood wins you the lane.

If I get it, I'll feel like I lucked out to win and whether or not I can outplay the opponent is something the game will not reveal. If I'm in the receiving end, I feel robbed if the lane was close; all the effort and jockeying cast aside by a single instance of RNG and I'll have to make big outplays to get back into it. Of course, the single random crit rune many people run in reds is the worst part: it's akin to the S1 crit mastery which meant everyone was randomly winning trades. That was removed because it wasn't rewarding and same applies to crit as a whole. Given only one archetype (and the few specifically designed champs, Trynd, Yi and Yasuo), marksman, really builds crit in any meaningful quantity, and they'll probably have enough to mitigate most of the RNG component in lategame, I don't think it's actually that big of a contributor to the game-to-game differences.

I'd say things like auto attack timings on lane, roam timings, ward placement, the skillshot minigames, etc. are all much more likely to contribute to a very different experience even between the exact same players and the same exact champs. Whether RNG crits happen is like to only influence botlane in the midgame and not that much in extended teamfights. And the superrandom Youmuu's or Triforce crits from some bot/midlane champs who build those items and sit at 10% crit for most of the game. The specifics are of course changing with the S6 itemization but I think there have been enough seasons for the trigger to be pulled especially since just about every other RNG mechanic in the game other than Shaco's Two-Shiv Poison vs. monsters has been removed.


I think there's room for crit to exist without it being an RNG mechanic: Sheen-type effects, Pantheon's HSS passive, Ashe's current passive, Cait's passive, Zeke's-style effects (just maybe 50% bonus to auto damage instead of 50% crit chance), etc. However, I feel the RNG crit effect is definitely a detriment to the game as a whole and it's not consistent with the rest of the game's design philosophy. It was a different game when dodge was around and some abilities had RNG components to them but those times are long gone - the current crit system is a relic from a bygone era. I'd even prefer the quick'n'dirty "convert %crit chance to %damage bonus on auto attacks".

I don't agree with this post. There are a few reasons I think you aren't correct. First, because some randomness does contribute to variety and freshness of games, second because randomness does not eliminate skill, and third because strictly rewarding skill doesn't always make for a good game. I'll try to hit each in turn.

Randomness making a game fresh: some of this, I think, is subconscious. It's not just the lucky crit landing, it's feeling k er the course of several trades and hits in a duo lane that you're making an impact. It's killing someone early in a team fight and turning the game or dying with the event at a sliver of health. That does lead to variety in games and can make a big difference in ensuring that everyvteamfight doesn't feel the same. You can't position identically every time and you have to react more or less aggressively depending on how your attacks are working.

Randomness doesn't eliminate skill: skill isn't just following a formulaic way of playing, it's how you react to the unexpected. That includes learning how to push an advantage if you get that crit (and let's be honest, people overestimate their advantage and get themselves killed at all levels of play). It includes learning how to play defensively and bait if you're on the receiving end of the crit. It's no different in that regard than walking the wrong way in response to a Cait Q or Jinx W and learning to respond appropriately.

Strictly rewarding skill can be bad: this is a major issue for growing a game because it's particularly important for new players. The fact that sometimes the "lesser" player can do well enough to benefit from a lucky streak and win is exhilarating for that player and will keep them playing to achieve greater mastery. If it is a foregone conclusion that the more skilled player will win, the game can become boring and push away new players, which ultimately stifles it.

Now, I don't claim that crit chance is the panacea for all these ills. But it is a particularly viscerally pleasing way of adding some variance to games, and I don't think it's current implementation is bad at all except for the 1% crit rune thing, which is just too much variance to be healthy, imo.

[Recaiden]

I don't agree with this post. There are a few reasons I think you aren't correct. First, because some randomness does contribute to variety and freshness of games, second because randomness does not eliminate skill, and third because strictly rewarding skill doesn't always make for a good game. I'll try to hit each in turn.

Randomness making a game fresh: some of this, I think, is subconscious. It's not just the lucky crit landing, it's feeling k er the course of several trades and hits in a duo lane that you're making an impact. It's killing someone early in a team fight and turning the game or dying with the event at a sliver of health. That does lead to variety in games and can make a big difference in ensuring that everyvteamfight doesn't feel the same. You can't position identically every time and you have to react more or less aggressively depending on how your attacks are working.

Randomness doesn't eliminate skill: skill isn't just following a formulaic way of playing, it's how you react to the unexpected. That includes learning how to push an advantage if you get that crit (and let's be honest, people overestimate their advantage and get themselves killed at all levels of play). It includes learning how to play defensively and bait if you're on the receiving end of the crit. It's no different in that regard than walking the wrong way in response to a Cait Q or Jinx W and learning to respond appropriately.

Strictly rewarding skill can be bad: this is a major issue for growing a game because it's particularly important for new players. The fact that sometimes the "lesser" player can do well enough to benefit from a lucky streak and win is exhilarating for that player and will keep them playing to achieve greater mastery. If it is a foregone conclusion that the more skilled player will win, the game can become boring and push away new players, which ultimately stifles it.

Now, I don't claim that crit chance is the panacea for all these ills. But it is a particularly viscerally pleasing way of adding some variance to games, and I don't think it's current implementation is bad at all except for the 1% crit rune thing, which is just too much variance to be healthy, imo.

I don't agree with this post.

You mention dying/surviving with a sliver of health. I think there's a difference between when you survive with a sliver of health in a numbers check and when you survive by a huge margin because of a crit. When you walk away with 3 health, you are glad you had health runes, or stayed alive that extra 1/2 second. When you walk away with 300 health left because the RNG kicked the other player, that's unnoticeable and uninteresting.

Your point about skill elimination is fair. But is the game any better when you need skill in handling randomness and skill in handling the enemy's actions? I don't think so.

I don't believe that new players have the close-comparison of skill levels that would make the more-skilled player winning every time a problem. There's an incredible skill range and people aren't uniform in their skills. Map awareness != farming != aim, but they're all skills used to play the game, and one can get advantage using them all.

[sonofzeal]

Off topic from general discussions, and pardon my meta cluelessness, but....

.....I've been playing a lot of Support Kennan recently. I may have mentioned before. With Teleport, because lulz. Good times all around, poke with Q+Spellthief, eventually start farming champions if the game goes well.

Last game though, something weird happened. I've been duoing with my wife who's recently fallen in love with Jinx, but some other fellow also locked in Draven and then ran bot alone and complained bitterly when I went top with Jinx. It got rather stressful and was bringing the tone way down, so (with my wife's permission) we fast-pushed top, harassed the enemy laner to the point of being solidly on the defensive, and then I teleported bot to help Draven before the wave hit his turret.

The weird part is how amazingly effective this ended up being. The fast push top got me a solid chunk of xp and then bounced the wave off the tower, resetting adequately and causing the enemy to lose some cs. Then when I ported bottom, I caught all the xp from those waves getting pushed against us, hit level 3 way before anyone else, and immediately launched straight into that "farm champions" phase far earlier than normal.



So, questionable choices like Jinx Top aside, is this an actual strat? Support going top just for the first wave or so, push hard into the tower, then immediately port bottom before they can push your solo ADC into the tower, to get a cs advantage for your top laner and an xp advantage to the support. Bonus points for timing the port bot with a jungle gank. Probably works best with a toplaner with good waveclear already (Olaf comes to mind) and an ADC who can play pretty safe in that brief 1v2 (Cait comes to mind), and a support that can have high pressure with a level advantage (Kennan, Lux, Annie, etc). It seems good in my limited theorycrafting, but I don't know if this is something other people actually do, or if it's only viable in Wood 5 land. Is this something I should be trying more?

[Olinser]

Off topic from general discussions, and pardon my meta cluelessness, but....

.....I've been playing a lot of Support Kennan recently. I may have mentioned before. With Teleport, because lulz. Good times all around, poke with Q+Spellthief, eventually start farming champions if the game goes well.

Last game though, something weird happened. I've been duoing with my wife who's recently fallen in love with Jinx, but some other fellow also locked in Draven and then ran bot alone and complained bitterly when I went top with Jinx. It got rather stressful and was bringing the tone way down, so (with my wife's permission) we fast-pushed top, harassed the enemy laner to the point of being solidly on the defensive, and then I teleported bot to help Draven before the wave hit his turret.

The weird part is how amazingly effective this ended up being. The fast push top got me a solid chunk of xp and then bounced the wave off the tower, resetting adequately and causing the enemy to lose some cs. Then when I ported bottom, I caught all the xp from those waves getting pushed against us, hit level 3 way before anyone else, and immediately launched straight into that "farm champions" phase far earlier than normal.



So, questionable choices like Jinx Top aside, is this an actual strat? Support going top just for the first wave or so, push hard into the tower, then immediately port bottom before they can push your solo ADC into the tower, to get a cs advantage for your top laner and an xp advantage to the support. Bonus points for timing the port bot with a jungle gank. Probably works best with a toplaner with good waveclear already (Olaf comes to mind) and an ADC who can play pretty safe in that brief 1v2 (Cait comes to mind), and a support that can have high pressure with a level advantage (Kennan, Lux, Annie, etc). It seems good in my limited theorycrafting, but I don't know if this is something other people actually do, or if it's only viable in Wood 5 land. Is this something I should be trying more?

Short answer - solo que, no, team 5s, it could work.

For solo que, unless you are prepared to tower dive at level 2/3 (VERY risky in solo que), it's not a good idea. Fast pushing your ADC wave is going to leave him WAY out in lane and exposed in a 2v1 and extremely vulnerable to a jungle gank or opposing team freezing the lane and zoning him completely (which he can't break in a 1v2 and can potentially cost a lot before you get back), while fast pushing ADC lane and then fast pushing top lane is going to almost force you to tower dive if you want a kill. If you DON'T pick up a kill then both of your lanes are going to be pushed way up and vulnerable to ganks, and your solo laner is going to be behind in EXP because you soaked it without giving back any from a kill.

Essentially, you are forcing 2 concurrent 2v1s (or potentially 3v1s depending on junglers), with theirs having favorable lane positioning, and betting that your 2v1 is going to get a kill and their 2v1 is not. In solo que, that is not usually a very good bet.

Also, teleport supports in general are not a good thing to be doing regularly in solo que (although a duo bot is one of the ways it can work). A support with teleport is going to have to leave his lane to use teleport, and leaving your ADC in general is essentially placing a large bet that your ADC is good enough to keep from being killed alone and you are good enough to pick up a kill.

In a team 5, it can work and is actually not that far off from previous pro metas, where teams will call in their jungler and fast push a lane 3v1 to get a tower and tower dive a solo champ if they tried to defend it, with good coordination a tower dive can be pulled off very easily if you juggle agro and have resets like Elise.

[TechnOkami]

Now, not in the direction of the healthiness of crit in League of Legends, but as to why I like crit in general.

Mostly I like it because I really enjoy the extra bit of chunk damage I get on my auto's, and because my attacks feel more impactful with crit chance. I feel like I hit harder than normal with a critical attack than a basic auto, and frankly, that makes me feel good when it happens.

[Lethologica]

Support with TP is raaaaaaare. Support taking lots of experience is similarly raaaaaaare. It reminds me of an article I read about EG revolutionizing the DotA 2 meta with farming supports. But the dynamic in LoL is kinda different because supports don't have a big advantage in early power curve. It's unlikely to catch on.

[Dragonus45]

I can safely say that the removal of crit as a game mechanic would be the kind of think that would get me to leave the game. Can't quite put into words what about it I find so important though.

[Anarion]

I like the topic, so I hope you don't mind if I keep going with this, Recaiden.

I don't agree with this post.

You mention dying/surviving with a sliver of health. I think there's a difference between when you survive with a sliver of health in a numbers check and when you survive by a huge margin because of a crit. When you walk away with 3 health, you are glad you had health runes, or stayed alive that extra 1/2 second. When you walk away with 300 health left because the RNG kicked the other player, that's unnoticeable and uninteresting.

I think all of these could be interesting. If your crits let you win decisively due to a lucky streak, that means you have the option of thinking about whether you can push an objective. Now you have to think about where the jungler is, where the enemy jungler is, how good your vision line is, and how long it will take you to finish up the tower/dragon/invade/whatever. If you had been really low, you'd just have backed.

Other times, crit is the sliver of health moment. Don't just think about lane, think about something like a high tenacity Irelia diving you. Your team hits her with a couple things, but she's not going to be stopping. You get a couple autos off, then get stunned, then have a couple more autos before you die to her. If the game is relatively close and you get the crits in your first set of attacks, you kill her, turn around and win the teamfight with your dps. If you don't get the crits you need, you die to the Irelia and your team might lose that fight. Given the number of autoattacks thrown out over the course of one game much less someone's entire ladder run in a season, this sort of thing will not materially affect your win rate at all, but it will have a huge effect in how you remember that game feeling, both in terms of thrills and sometimes rage. Even in the negative moments, this sort of high tension moment makes most people care about the game. A lot.

Your point about skill elimination is fair. But is the game any better when you need skill in handling randomness and skill in handling the enemy's actions? I don't think so.

I do. Handling randomness is a different kind of skill and allows for variety in player focuses. Some players are all about their careful planning, rotations etc. Think Hai's shotcalling for example. Others are much less good at that, but very good at reacting to changes in the moment. Like, any of the mechanics highlight reels where you see people make millisecond flashes. Unknown factors like crits can be a major factor in forcing split second decision-making that rewards mechanical skill and muscle memory.

I don't believe that new players have the close-comparison of skill levels that would make the more-skilled player winning every time a problem. There's an incredible skill range and people aren't uniform in their skills. Map awareness != farming != aim, but they're all skills used to play the game, and one can get advantage using them all.

The new player argument is one factor among many. There are a variety of ways for new players to engage with the game. One very common way is for that player to take their cool-looking character and go fight with the cool looking character approaching them from the other side. One extremely rare way is for the new player to carefully do the math to figure out when their character can win fights and understand how much damage they're doing. Crit means that sometimes a "bad" decision works out. It takes a 100% fight and changes it to, let's say, an 80-20 fight. Sometimes that 20% comes up and the player wins.

You might say "oh, Anarion, that would never work on me, I'd just feel terrible about how stupid it is." And I accept that it's not for everyone, it's not really my thing either, I'm in the low percentage "sat down and did all the math first" group. But lots and lots of people will remain and engaged and choose to keep learning the game because the variety made it so that they didn't feel oppressed starting out.

[Recaiden]

Why would I mind? The only objectionable part of your post is

A lot.

I think all of these could be interesting. If your crits let you win decisively due to a lucky streak, that means you have the option of thinking about whether you can push an objective. Now you have to think about where the jungler is, where the enemy jungler is, how good your vision line is, and how long it will take you to finish up the tower/dragon/invade/whatever. If you had been really low, you'd just have backed.

I'm not sure this is valid. If you win due to a lucky crit streak, your opponent isn't thinking about pushing, junglers, invades, objectives. And if you lose due to a bad series of crits, they get options, denying them to you. I think any fight will generate these abstract opportunities, regardless of how it's resolved. Maybe crits do let a fight be resolved with a wider margin of remaining resources, but that seems like a bad thing, to have one method of damage-scaling not act like the others in terms of what it enables.

Other times, crit is the sliver of health moment. Don't just think about lane, think about something like a high tenacity Irelia diving you. Your team hits her with a couple things, but she's not going to be stopping. You get a couple autos off, then get stunned, then have a couple more autos before you die to her. If the game is relatively close and you get the crits in your first set of attacks, you kill her, turn around and win the teamfight with your dps. If you don't get the crits you need, you die to the Irelia and your team might lose that fight. Given the number of autoattacks thrown out over the course of one game much less someone's entire ladder run in a season, this sort of thing will not materially affect your win rate at all, but it will have a huge effect in how you remember that game feeling, both in terms of thrills and sometimes rage. Even in the negative moments, this sort of high tension moment makes most people care about the game. A lot.

Every moment where specific crits matter is a negative moment for at least one (but occasionally both) side. People apologize in all-chat for how the RNG comes out at times. In your Irelia situation, the survival of both teams depends on one person's crits. Yes, people will care about that game. In the way where they start screaming at each other and shut down LoL immediately after (or during) the game. How about the case where you run into a Draven, who has time for 1 auto before you disengage or assassinate him? If it crits, it does 100% of your health and you die. If it doesn't, everything is fine. Someone is getting screwed over by the numbers here.

I do. Handling randomness is a different kind of skill and allows for variety in player focuses. Some players are all about their careful planning, rotations etc. Think Hai's shotcalling for example. Others are much less good at that, but very good at reacting to changes in the moment. Like, any of the mechanics highlight reels where you see people make millisecond flashes. Unknown factors like crits can be a major factor in forcing split second decision-making that rewards mechanical skill and muscle memory.

This seems like a valid opinion to hold, but I will not agree with it. I think the only things worth reacting to are your opponents' and allies' actions. The game normally rewards mechanical skill and twitch decision-making quite a bit. There's no reason to weight it more heavily.
I play with someone who is fond of saying, when a play in LoL goes badly, "I should have X" or "He should have died from that." And most of the time, I can think 'no, if it should have happened, it would have. You just got outplayed'. (Actually, more often than I'd like, I have to say 'yeah, that Ashe ult should have stunned them instead of sailing through their body' or 'yeah, Tahm's Devour probably should target the 3-stack enemy champion right on top of him rather than the ally 249 units away'). I would love to never have to agree that the game didn't go the way it should have.

Not that 'responding to randomness' as part of a game is bad. It's just that for a game with so little randomness and so much depth already, why? LoL could be really random. Every AA could do variable damage. Baron could spawn at different times. Spells could crit. That wouldn't necessarily make a bad game. But it would make this game bad.

I didn't respond to the new players. Personally, I don't remember caring about crit as a pre-30. Theoretically, I don't think the overall game constructs should cater to beginners. (If they're not gonna nerf Lee Sin or rework Shaco, I shouldn't have to endure critical hits).

[shadow_archmagi]

I play with someone who is fond of saying, when a play in LoL goes badly, "I should have X" or "He should have died from that." And most of the time, I can think 'no, if it should have happened, it would have. You just got outplayed'. (Actually, more often than I'd like, I have to say 'yeah, that Ashe ult should have stunned them instead of sailing through their body' or 'yeah, Tahm's Devour probably should target the 3-stack enemy champion right on top of him rather than the ally 249 units away'). I would love to never have to agree that the game didn't go the way it should have.

Oh man shout out to Tahm's target acquisition being a little weird. I've had so many bad eats.

[Maryring]

Don't blame Tammy. He just eats to fill the loneliness in his heart.

(And sometimes to be annoying. No, I don't want to be eaten when I'm supposed to be tanking the enemy team.)

[Ashen Lilies]

I've been annoyed at allied Tahms eating me when I'm a 6-item Jinx pelting their enemy team, just because someone on their team that I can easily out-lifesteal and out-dps looked at me funny. >.>

"Yes, Tahm, you may have successfully 'saved' me, but at the cost of ALL OUR DAMAGE."

[Reinboom]

I can safely say that the removal of crit as a game mechanic would be the kind of think that would get me to leave the game. Can't quite put into words what about it I find so important though.

That's a pretty ending response.

If you have the opportunity to discuss and have mumble of Skype, I would like to understand your thoughts on this.

[Dienekes]

I've been annoyed at allied Tahms eating me when I'm a 6-item Jinx pelting their enemy team, just because someone on their team that I can easily out-lifesteal and out-dps looked at me funny. >.>

"Yes, Tahm, you may have successfully 'saved' me, but at the cost of ALL OUR DAMAGE."

My new bane is thinking I'm about to get a kill or two only to have an allied or enemy Kindred ult.

I don't think she's overpowered or anything, I just really hate her for that. Had one game where it happened every teamfight. Sure, you just stay in the circle and kill them after, unless you get dogpiled. But it really throws off your groove.

[shadow_archmagi]

I've been annoyed at allied Tahms eating me when I'm a 6-item Jinx pelting their enemy team, just because someone on their team that I can easily out-lifesteal and out-dps looked at me funny. >.>

"Yes, Tahm, you may have successfully 'saved' me, but at the cost of ALL OUR DAMAGE."

That's why I focus on eating enemies. :D

My new bane is thinking I'm about to get a kill or two only to have an allied or enemy Kindred ult.

I don't think she's overpowered or anything, I just really hate her for that. Had one game where it happened every teamfight. Sure, you just stay in the circle and kill them after, unless you get dogpiled. But it really throws off your groove.

TOO TRUE.

[McDouggal]

So, has everyone seen the new Braum video?

[TechnOkami]

So, has everyone seen the new Braum video?

That was unexpectedly catchy.

[McDouggal]

OK, I need tips on how to deal with Tahm Kench. In general.

Just got out of a game where I couldn't do anything in botlane as ADC because <redacted> Tahm Kench and his <redacted> broken Devour. Then his team got far enough ahead that he was dueling our jungle Amumu and winning.

I wasn't having fun in general because the only safe space for me in the game in the last 5 minutes was the back of my fountain - even when I was kiting to the best of my ability and dodging skillshots, it didn't matter because they would just flash on top of me and kill me instantly.

[shadow_archmagi]

OK, I need tips on how to deal with Tahm Kench. In general.

Just got out of a game where I couldn't do anything in botlane as ADC because <redacted> Tahm Kench and his <redacted> broken Devour. Then his team got far enough ahead that he was dueling our jungle Amumu and winning.

I wasn't having fun in general because the only safe space for me in the game in the last 5 minutes was the back of my fountain - even when I was kiting to the best of my ability and dodging skillshots, it didn't matter because they would just flash on top of me and kill me instantly.

Speaking as a Tahm player, Tahm is fantastic in 1v1s or 2v2s where everyone commits fully. He really likes it when he can melee you enough to use his Q to stun, then at the end of stun Devour you, then at the end of Devour his Q is up again... if he can't get those stacks though, his power is very limited. Just kite him. He's got exactly one skillshot slow, and while that's on cooldown, he has nothing. Also, the cooldown on Devour is tremendous, I want to say 15 seconds or something. If he uses Devour on a minion or a friendly, that's your window to kill his friends because he has very little he can do.

Also keep in mind that Tahm's fantastic dueling potential is at the cost of any real teamfight abilities at all. Where, say, Malphite left unchecked will ult and stun your entire team, then groundpound and reduce attack speed for your entire team, Tahm will autoattack one guy, maybe stun him if he gets the stacks. If your team has strong peel, or even just a good number of snares, you can completely ignore him during fights. (as long as whoever he licks is careful not to get eaten)

Also, again, minions block his Q, so just treat him like a Thresh and you shouldn't have much trouble.

[Manticoran]

Disengage is also REALLY strong against Tahm. If you can get him low on hp, then just disengage before he pops his full hp shield, he still pretty much ends up at low hp. And if you can get him to pop his shield and THEN disengage safely, he'll be at practically nothing. Certain kinds of poke are also disgustingly good.